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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
This stone inscription, which has provided very welcome information on the history of the Śāhi dynasty of Udbhāṇḍapura, commonly called the Hindu Śāhis of Kabul and Panjab, was brought to light in the course of the comprehensive search for Śāhi records carried out by Mr Abdur Rehman, who published the text together with an English translation and copious notes in JRAS, 1978, pp. 31–37. Rehman has made an important contribution to the history of the Śāhi dynasty by suggesting that the dates in the inscriptions of the Sahis should be referred to an era founded by Kallar, the founder of the dynasty, in A.D. 850. Rehman has rightly called this era the Śāhi Era. Some of the verses and expressions in this inscription of Jayapala have not been correctly interpreted, however, and in one case by his rendering of verse 8, the editor has been led to draw wrong historical conclusions. The need for a re-appraisal is apparent.
1 Mahābhārata, Poona, critical edition of B.O.R.I., III, 81, 166–67. The following verses from the Gita Press Gorakhpur edition of the Mahābhārata are also worth quoting:
Udapānāni vāpyaś ca tīrthāny āyatanāni ca/
niḥsaṃśayam amāvasyāṃ sameṣyanti narādhipaj//
Māsi-māsi nara-vyāghra Sannihatyāṣ na saṣśayaḥ/
tīrtha-saṣnihanād eva Saṣnihatyeti viśrutā//
“O King, the wells, the artesian wells, places of pilgrimage, and the sanctuaries of sacrifices, will undoubtedly come together, every month on the last day of the dark fortnight, at Sannihatī, O tiger among men. On account of the gathering together of the sacred places, Saṃnihatyā has become well-known as such.”
2 The name of this sacred tank is written as Sannihityā in the inscription. Locative Saṣnihityām is the reading in the Agni Purāṇạ, 109, 15. The Gita Press Edition of the Mahābhārata gives Saṃnihitīin III, 83, 190; and the variant Samnihatya in III, 83, 195. The B.O.R.I, text has Saṃnihityām, v.l. Saṃnihityām at III, 81, 167 and 169 (verse 169 corresponds to Gita Press verses 194–95, four pādas being rejected).
3 JRAS, 1978, 34.
4 JRAS, 1978, 37, n. 22.
5 cf. the words Umānāthaḥ pratiṣṭitaḥ.